My Students are Me.

Teaching 12th grade is hard, but it doesn’t make me crazy.
I Teach. I made a conscious decision to revolve my life and my career around our Nation’s young people. Why?

My students are me.
When I look at my students, I see myself. I see minorities. Foster youth. Broken, fatherless homes. Struggle and fear.  But I also  see first generation Graduates. Overcomers, Determination. Perseverance. Resiliency. Me.

Inspired.
In all my 5 years of teaching, I have taught high school and luckily, I’ve been able to keep a close relationship with my students over the past few years. When I meet other educators, I always get this dramatic “Oh my gosh, you’re crazy” type of reaction. I teach because few people will. Who else will take on the task?

I teach because I want my impact to be great. I want to inspire as many young people as possible–daily. Our youth are neglected in more ways than you know. And I’ve been there.

I teach so that I can give back–daily.

Teaching is my superpower. When it’s your passion, you have to do it and you always find a way to make it happen…

My students–all of them, public school and Sabbath School, drive me everyday to be the best version of myself because I remember being them. I remember qualifying for free and reduced lunches and because I didn’t have money to buy my own lunch everyday, I grabbed my cafeteria meals and went to a classroom to eat in secret and do my homework. I remember wondering what money I would use to buy an SAT textbook, and taking my SATs not once or twice but 3 times and praying for a better score only to see that it was worse. Talk about not giving up even without a financial support system.

I also remember my drive and go-getter attitude. I remember how nonetheless, those cafeteria meals fed me and I had more energy than the students who went off campus to eat. I remember how giving up was never an option—what is there to lose by continuing to try?

I’ll never forget working tirelessly through the night on AP homework and still thinking about the dishes I had to wash. I remember high school and being in the shoes of many of my students and in so so many ways.